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Thomas JefFersori 

Lover of Liberty 

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John Hancock 

Mutual Life Insurance Company 

Boston, Mass. . '.i^M 



KX'-.'JAJliL 



Thomas 

Jefferson 

Lover of Liberty 



BY 

Mabel Mason Carlton 



Published by the 




Life Insurance Company 

OF Boston. Massachusetts 




By Trangf er 
lAR 3 1928 




Thomas Jefferson 

''He hated tyranny; he loved truth; he was 
not afraid of man.'' 

THOMAS JEFFERSON, the first great scholar in 
American politics, the author of the Declaration of 
Independence, of the statute for religious freedom 
in Virginia, and the third President of the United States, 
was among the first of our statesmen who held these 
truths" to be self-evident: — "That all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
tain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." First, last, and always, 
Jefferson believed in the people. To the end of his days 
he had sublime faith in human nature. "It is my con- 
viction," he wrote, "that should things go wrong at any 
time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable 
exercise of their elective rights." No man ever despised 
tyranny more thoroughly, or loved freedom more un- 
relentingly than this great noble-hearted patriot. - 

A Son of "Old Virginie'* 

AT his father's home, "Shad well," in Virginia, near 
, where the River Rivanna enters the James, Thomas 
Jefferson was born April 13, 1743, the third in a family 



of eight children. His father, Peter Jefferson, a planter 
with nineteen hundred acres of land and thirty slaves, 
was a hardy frontiersman; his mother, Jane Randolph, 
was of aristocratic blood and gentle bearing. 

Off to School 

AT the age of five, Thomas started his schooling; and 
1^ at nine he entered the school of Reverend William 
Douglas, a Scotch clergyman, where he began the study 
of Latin, Greek, and French. 

At seventeen, three years after his father's death, 
Thomas entered William and Mary College at Williams- 
burg. He was then a shy, tall, slight young man, eager 
for information. He inherited his father's great strength 
of body and mind, a capacity for labor, self-reliance, and 
the wholesome democratic faith of the frontier; from his 
mother, idealism, extreme delicacy of taste, musical 
appreciation, and noble poise. 

At college, Thomas devoted himself to his books, 
studying fifteen hours a day, and allowing himself just 
time to run a mile out of town each evening for necessary 
exercise. "Three things," he said, "became a passion 
with me — mathematics, music, architecture.'* He played 
the violin skillfully, often practicing three hours a day 
during his busy student life. 

After two years' study, he was graduated from college. 
All his life he was a constant reader, — studious, reflective, 
inquisitive, liberal-minded. He collected fine and rare 
books until his library became one of the largest, most 
excellent, and most complete in America. 



A Champion of Justice 

THE next five years, 1762-67, Thomas Jefferson spent 
studying law in the office of George Wythe, one of 
the most brilHant attorneys of the Virginia bar. His 
great knowledge of law, which he acquired at this time, 
was shown later in the reform of the code of laws of 
Virginia, in his diplomatic correspondence in France, 
and in his messages as secretary of state. In his youth he 
laid the foundation upon which he built his great career. 
He was admitted to the bar In 1767, at the age of 
twenty-four, and practiced law for seven years. 

On his twenty-first birthday, Jefferson became master 
of his father's estate and celebrated the event with plant- 
ing an avenue of trees at Shadwell. He was an ideal 
figure for a southern planter, tall, lithe, athletic, and 
passionately fond of his horses and broad acres. He 
assumed the duties of a country squire, became justice 
of the peace and a vestryman of the parish. 

In His Country's Service 

IN 1768, at the age of twenty-five, Jefferson was elected 
to the Virginia House of Burgesses. This marked the 
beginning of his public life, which lasted for forty years. 
With absolute devotion to his state and country, he re- 
solved "never to engage, while in public office, in any 
kind of enterprise for the improvement of my fortune." 
Needless to add, he kept his resolution. 

Home at Monticello 

JEFFERSON'S home, "Shadwell," burned to the 
ground in the mid-winter of 1 7 70. Nothing was saved 
but his fiddle. A new mansion, which he had already 



begun on his favorite hilltop, where he used to sit and 
read and dream as a boy, was hastily completed. He 
called it *'Monticello," the Italian for "little mountain." 
This home, built wholly from Jefferson's own plans, and 
partly with his own hands, is still standing, one of the 
treasures of our colonial architecture. 

On New Year's Day, 1772, Jefferson brought to Mon- 
ticello as his bride Mrs. Martha Skelton, a childless 
widow of twenty-three. She brought to him forty 
thousand acres of land and one hundred and thirty-five 
slaves. The land, however, was heavily mortgaged. A 
year after his marriage, Jefferson took into his home his 
widowed sister and her six children, whom he cared for 
and educated as though they were his own. Of his own 
six children only two, Martha and Mary, grew to woman- 
hood. He was exceedingly fond of his two daughters. 
Mrs. Jefferson died in 1782. 

The Declaration of Independence 

JEFFERSON presented a list of instructions to the 
delegates to the convention in Williamsburg in 1774 
who met to appoint representatives to the Continental 
Congress in Philadelphia. These instructions were after- 
ward printed under the title, A Summary View of the 
Rights of British America. Although they were then 
designated as "too bold for the present state of things," 
with a later Reply to Lord North they formed the basis of 
Jefferson's immortal Declaration of Independence. 

From this time, the call of his country kept him almost 
a stranger to Montlcello. He became altogether a pub- 
lic servant, protesting to the day of his release from the 
presidency, thirty-five years later, that "he would have 



laid down high office any moment for the joy of returning 
to his estate." 

Jefferson was sent as an alternative to the Second 
Continental Congress which had opened in Carpenter's 
Hall, Philadelphia, May 10, 1775. He arrived on June 
20, *'just in time to see George Washington set out for 
Cambridge to take command of the first American 
Army." He was now thirty-two years old, the youngest 
man, except two, in the Congress. With John Dickin- 
son, he wrote the famous Declaration on the Colonists 
Taking Up Arms, emphasizing that "our cause is just, 
our union is perfect," and "resolving rather to die free 
than live slaves." 

Jefferson resumed his seat in Congress in May, 1776. 
On June 1 1 he was elected to the first place on a commit- 
tee chosen to draft a declaration of independence. Chosen 
with him were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger 
Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston; who, recognizing 
Jefferson's ability, turned the task of writing the dec- 
laration over to him. The document was presented to 
Congress; passed a "fiery ordeal of criticism," in which a 
few words were added at the suggestions of Adams and 
Franklin, and some passages were suppressed ; and finally, 
on July 4th, accepted. It was signed first by John 
Hancock, President of the Congress, who "wrote his 
name where all nations should behold it and all time 
should not efface it." 

The Declaration embodies the "equality of all men in 
the eyes of nature and the law, the inalienable rights of 
all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the func- 
tion of government as a guarantee of those rights, its just 
powers derived from the consent of the governed" — the 



principles upon which our democracy is founded. Jef- 
ferson came to Congress an educated, true-hearted lover 
of his country; he left it famous as long as America and 
freedom shall endure. 

Lawgiver to Virginia 

JEFFERSON was reelected to Congress, but feeling 
the need of reformed legislation in his native state, 
declined. To him goes the credit for establishing within 
Virginia the most advanced, revolutionary, and demo- 
cratic laws then known to man. He loved the people 
and hated class distinction of any kind. His first blow 
at the old aristocracy of wealth, "to make an opening for 
the aristocracy of virtue and talent," was the abolition 
of the laws of entail and primogeniture. 

In June, 1779, Jefferson presented his world-renowned 
bill for religious freedom in Virginia, which was debated 
for seven years before it was finally adopted in 1786. The 
English Established Church held sway in Virginia ; every- 
one was required to pay money for its support. Dis- 
senters, or those opposed to the Church, were often 
persecuted ; and Baptists were thrown into prison for 
preaching, as Patrick Henry declared, "the doctrine of 
the Saviour to Adam's fallen race." Virginia, in adopt- 
ing Jefferson's resolution, was the first sovereign state in 
Christendom that formally proclaimed in its laws the abso- 
lute religious freedom of every one of its citizens. This 
principle of religious freedom was introduced into the 
Constitution of the United States by the first Amendment. 

Two projects which Jefferson particularly cherished 
were doomed to defeat. One provided for the abolition 
of slavery; the other, a general system of education, 

8 



called for the institution of primary and secondary 
schools all over the state. Writing nearly fifty years 
later, Jefferson says, "Nothing is more clearly written in 
the book of fate than that these people are to be free." 
His education bills were not passed until 1796, and then 
"only so much as provided for elementary schools," 
which could be established or not as each county chose. 
Quite naturally, few schools were founded. Although 
Jefferson was the first great advocate of a democratic 
nation where the people rule, he believed most firmly in 
an educated people. 

Governor of Virginia 

THOMAS JEFFERSON was inaugurated Governor 
of Virginia in June, 1779, to succeed Patrick Henry, 
her first Governor; and served until June, 1781, when he 
was succeeded by General Thomas Nelson. During his 
term of service the battleground of the Revolutionary 
War was transferred to the South. Jefferson was not a 
great soldier, but he did all in his power to raise a defen- 
sive militia. 

On June 7, 1781, Washington wrote to him: "Allow 
me, before I take leave of your Excellency in your public 
capacity, to express the obligations I am under for the 
readiness and zeal with which you have always forwarded 
and supported every measure which I have had occasion 
to recommend through you, and to assure you that I shall 
esteem myself honored by a continuation of your friend- 
ship and correspondence." 



Minister to France 

HE returned to Congress in 1783, and served until the 
following May. From his pen came the reply 
which the President of Congress made to Washington 
when he resigned as Commander-in-Chief of the army. 
He established our present system of coinage, doing 
away with the English pounds, shillings, and pence, and 
drafted an Ordinance for the Government of the Western 
Territory of the United States. 

In 1784, Congress appointed Jefferson minister pleni- 
potentiary, with Mr. Adams and Doctor Franklin, to 
negotiate treaties of commerce with foreign nations. He 
sailed July 5, and joined Franklin in Paris. The next 
year he was appointed sole minister to France. 

The Father of Democracy 

JEFFERSON took his place as Secretary of State in 
Washington's Cabinet in New York, then a city of 
thirty-five thousand and the seat of the national govern- 
ment, on March 21, 1790. He objected severely to the 
policies of Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the 
Treasury. It was soon evident that there were two 
factions in American politics. Jefferson became the 
father of the Republican (later Democratic) party in 
opposition to Alexander Hamilton and his followers, who 
made up the Federalist party. Jefferson resigned from 
the cabinet in 1793; but by his reports to Congress on the 
currency, the fisheries, weights and measures, and through 
his correspondence with foreign ministers, he had placed 
his department on a level with foreign offices of older 
nations. 

10 



Back at Monticello, Jefferson spent his efforts in 
organizing the RepubUcan (now Democratic) party of 
which he was the acknowledged founder. Many were 
those who differed with him and who denounced his 
poHtical behefs. But he rose above all efforts to crush 
him. His will was firm. It has been remarked of him 
that "he never abandoned a plan, a principle, or a friend." 
He had faith in the people. "To educate the mass of the 
people, on whom the hope of continued freedom must 
depend, so that they should be increasingly capable of 
supervising and controlling their governors, seemed to 
Jefferson the sublimest mission of the republic." He 
undertook to educate and organize his followers with all 
the enthusiasm of his democratic faith. The skill and 
diligence with which he organized the Democratic party 
has been recognized by his friends and foes alike. 

Vice-President oj the United States 

ON March 4, 1797, Jefferson became Vice-President of 
the United States with John Adams as President. 
In this capacity he served as chairman of the Senate and 
compiled a Manual of Parliamentary Practice, which has 
ever since been the standard by which the proceedings 
of legislative bodies in this country are regulated. 

President oj the United States 

UP to this time many of the ceremonies, fashions, and 
titles of European courts had surrounded the chief 
executive and the Congress. The President, who was 
always addressed as "Your Excellency," drove in a 
splendid coach and six with footmen and guards about 
him. When Thomas Jefferson, the great leader of De- 
ll 



mocracy, was inaugurated the Third President of the 
United States on March 4, 1801, he rode to the Capitol 
unattended, in a plain suit of clothes, hitched his horse to 
the fence, entered the Senate Chamber and read his ad- 
dress. Thus simple, indeed, was the man who wished 
ever to be known as "the friend of the people." 

He at once made important changes in all matters of 
etiquette and form, abolishing levees, titles, and state 
ceremonies, and making himself more accessible to the 
people. There was nothing coarse about the "Jefferson- 
ian simplicity" — he was a man of ''rare accomplishments 
and fine tastes, a scholar, musician, and diplomat." The 
soul of hospitality, he kept in the White House an open 
table at which his guests were cheered by good fare and 
charmed with brilliant conversation. 

Jefferson's first official act as President was to remove 
from public office those hostile to the administration, 
filling the vacancies with those who held his political 
views. He also reduced the army and navy ; passed a 
naturalization law requiring aliens to be residents of the 
United States five years instead of fourteen before they 
could become citizens ; lessened internal taxes ; established 
the first sinking fund, the setting aside each year by the 
government of $7,300,000 to pay off the pubHc debt; and 
passed the first law relating to slave trade, preventing 
the "importation of negroes, mulattoes, and other persons 
of color into any part of the United States within a state 
which has prohibited by law the admission of any such 
person." 

Three other services — the Barbary Pirates, the Louisi- 
ana Purchase, and the Embargo Acts — deserve special 
consideration. Although the United States had paid 

12 



ransom money and tribute to the pirates on the Barbary 
coast all through the administrations of Washington and 
Adams, Jefferson refused to pay an increase in our 
tribute of eighty-three thousand dollars to the Bashaw 
of Tripoli, who, on being refused, declared war on the 
United States by chopping down the flagpole in front of 
the American consulate. Jefferson sent several expedi- 
tions to punish these pirates, and after four years made 
the Mediterranean safe for our commerce and trade. 

Perhaps Jefferson's greatest service as President was 
the Louisiana Purchase — the buying, on May 2, 1803, of 
the entire Mississippi Valley, from the Allegheny to the 
Rocky Mountains, from France for $15,000,000. Four- 
teen states have been carved out of this territory; the 
farm property alone in them is now worth over sixteen 
billion dollars, or more than a thousand times the value 
of the purchase. Through Jefferson's influence Congress 
voted twenty-five hundred dollars to send an "intelligent 
officer" to explore "even to the Western Ocean." The 
Lewis and Clark Expedition resulted, marking the first 
recorded passage of white men across the northern part 
of what is now the United States. Jefferson realized that 
the states must expand westward and in fancy already 
saw a great America reaching from ocean to ocean 

Jefferson was elected for a second term as President, 
with an overwhelming majority. 

Because England and France were now at war and 
each persisted in capturing American vessels, accusing 
them of carrying aid to the enemy, Jefferson passed the 
Embargo Act, which forbade American vessels to leave 
port. Our commerce was severely crippled. Peace at 
sea did not come until after the war of 1812. In 1809, 

13 



Jefferson's term ended; his friend and disciple, James 
Madison, was elected to succeed him. 

In Retirement at Monticello 

AT sixty-five years of age, Jefferson retired to Monti- 
L cello, where his daughter Martha (Mrs. Thomas 
Mann Randolph), who had the "Jefferson temperament 
— all music and sunshine" — with her eleven children 
presided over the hospitable home. 

A beloved statesman, a friend of the people, a famous 
scholar and politician, and a distinguished scientist widely 
known for his contributions to scientific periodicals, he 
was honored and visited by celebrities from all over the 
world. In the midst of this loving company, he would 
not allow his guests to rob him of the hours he devoted 
to work at his desk, in his Hbrary, or on his farm. He 
still rose early. He said that the sun had not for fifty 
years caught him in bed. He carried on an amazingly 
large correspondence (sixteen thousand of his letters are 
preserved to this day), and wielded a great influence on 
alj political and social questions of his time. 

One of the most industrious of men, he taught his 
offspring: ''Determine never to be idle. No person will 
have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never 
loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we 
are always doing." 

Father of the University of Virginia 

TO "promote popular education as an essential con- 
dition to the safety of the republic," he established 
at Charlottesville the University of Virginia — the most 
liberal institution of learning in the world. Jefferson 

14 



gave money; superintended the construction of buildings; 
selected the professors (there was no president; the pro- 
fessors were equal in rank and managed details for them- 
selves) ; prescribed the course of study, which was almost 
wholly elective, and from 1819 until his death in 1826 
served as rector of the board of visitors. 

His Last Days 

JEFFERSON was too fond of experiments and fancy 
improvements and too often away from his lands to 
be practically successful as a farmer. His household 
expenses were heavy and he found himself practically 
bankrupt. When the public buildings in Washington 
were burned by the British in 1814, he offered to Congress 
his dearly-prized library of some thirteen thousand 
volumes, which he had been collecting for fifty years, for 
a little less than twenty-four thousand dollars, about half 
its original value. This sum, however, brought only 
temporary relief. When his friends in New York, 
Philadelphia, and Baltimore heard of his circumstances 
they presented him with about eighteen thousand dollars. 
He was greatly touched by this ''pure and unsolicited 
offering of love." 

He retained his vigor of mind and body to the last. 
When eighty-one years old, he not only mounted his 
horse without assistance, but dismounting at a fence 
breast-high, would leap over it by only placing his hand 
on the topmost rail. Until he was eighty- two he rode 
daily for ten miles. 

Death came on July 4, 1826, fifty years to the day 
from the signing of his epoch-making document, the 
Declaration of Independence. John Adams, then ninety- 

15 



one years old, died a few hours later on the same day at 
Quincy, Mass., with the words ''Thomas Jefferson still 
lives" on his lips. Although he had already passed into 
life immortal, Jefferson still lives and will live as long as 
liberty-loving America shall endure. 

Among his papers was found a sketch of a granite 
stone which he desired for his monument, with these 
words to be inscribed upon it, 

Here was buried 

Thomas Jefferson 

Author of the Declaration of Independence 

Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom 

And Father of the University of Virginia 

The last letter penned by Jefferson's aged hand was 
a summons to his countrymen to renew with "undimin- 
ished devotion" their faith in the rights of man and the 
blessings of self-government. "Freedom was the text of 
his life: 'I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal 
hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of 
man.' Freedom was the burden of his labors: 'I will 
endeavor to keep attention fixed on the main object of all 
science, the freedom and happiness of man.'" 

Jefferson gave nobly of the affection of his heart and 
the power of his intellect ; and he received, as he deserved, 
the love and honor of thousands ^at home and abroad. 
Today in all parts of the world, wherever the story of 
America is told, the name Thomas Jefferson is synony- 
mous with democracy — a great, free democracy, where 
all men share alike in the joys of "life, Hberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness." Jefferson would crush no man 
for the sake of another's gain; but through learning and 
liberty he would lift every being to the highest plane of 
human happiness. 

89 1 ^ 

Livermore & Knight Co., Providence 




Albemarle County 
Virginia 

the home of Thomas Jef- 
ferson. This home, built 
wholly from Jefferson's 
own plans, and partly 
with his own hands, is 
still standing, one of the 
treasures of our colonial 
architecture. 



^ 



J 



I No. 70. C0PYII6HT, 1922, JOH« HANCOCK Mutual Lifi Ins. Co., Boston. Mass. 



m\ Hill 




B@pp 



Presented by the 




Life Insurance Company 

or Boston. Massachusetts 







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